Dunn, who is white, fired 10 shots into an SUV, killing Jordan Davis, 17, who was black. The shooting in a convenience store parking lot in Jacksonville erupted after Dunn asked the teenagers in the vehicle to turn down their music.
Dunn was charged with first-degree murder, three counts of attempted second-degree murder and one count of firing into a vehicle in the Nov. 23, 2012, shooting. The jury couldn’t reach a decision on the first-degree murder charge, but convicted on the other four.
So the jury finds this guy guilty of trying to kill the kids in the car his missed, but they couldn’t find him guilty of the actually killing the kid he did hit. Dunn could get up to 75 years for the charges that he was convicted of and it seems that the prosecutor may retry on the murder charges. It is still utterly appalling that this kid’s life could be so easily forfeit and devalued. Ta-Nehisi Coates provides the appropriate response (I wish I could post the whole thing — please go read it in it’s entirety):
I insist that the irrelevance of black life has been drilled into this country since its infancy, and shall not be extricated through the latest innovations in Negro Finishing School. I insist that racism is our heritage, that Thomas Jefferson’s genius is no more important than his plundering of the body of Sally Hemmings, that George Washington’s abdication is no more significant than his wild pursuit of Oney Judge. I insist that the G.I Bill’s accolades are inseparable from its racist heritage. I will not respect the lie. I insist that racism must be properly understood as an Intelligence, as a sentience, as a default setting to which, likely until the end of our days, we unerringly return.
Right.
In other news, George Zimmerman is working up his conservative cred by claiming that he is a victim of President Obama. He’ll have his own wingnut talk show soon.
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